Some books entertain, others inform, and some tantalise by what they leave out. Often, a single volume will hit two of these targets (usually entertaining and informing, since omission – if not a sin – can be frustrating) but it is a rare tome that manages all three. So it is with this selection of (and from) letters to and from the late, much-missed composer-pianist (and more besides), John McCabe, who died 10 years ago. His widow, Monica, has sifted though his correspondence to pull together a broadly chronological sequence starting in 1948 with a reply from the distinguished organist-composer Frederick H Wood (1880-1963) to the then eight-year-old budding composer. Only part of Wood’s reply is included (I presume McCabe’s original has not survived) but indicates already the youngster’s keen interest in music as well as the eminently practical editorial approach taken.

The first of McCabe’s own letters is the second presented here, dating from 10 years later, when he was 19: a handwritten letter from August 1958 while holidaying with his cousin’s family on Hayling Island. After this, the letters come with increasing frequency from such luminaries as Humphrey Procter-Gregg (1960), Frederic Cox (1970), and Gordon Green (1980) – McCabe’s former teachers in Manchester – as well as Beryl Bainbridge (her husband’s portrait of John aged 12 is the frontispiece) and composers such as Don Banks, Richard Rodney Bennett, Alan Bush (in combative mode), David Matthews, Nicholas Maw, John Pickard, Alan Rawsthorne, Judith Weir and many more. Some extracts focus on McCabe’s performances of others’ music: Britten, John Casken, David Maslanka and Harold Truscott (concerning Clementi and Pinto); others are concerned with different strands of his career, whether composer and reviewer (Barbirolli), composer and pianist (John Corigliano, of whose Piano Concerto McCabe gave the UK premiere in 1984, and André Previn, discussing Notturni ed alba and Rachmaninov piano duets – Previn conducted McCabe’s music in the 1970s and ’80s), or both as in those from Robert Simpson (one concerned with the furore over Simpson’s book, The Proms and Natural Justice).

Many of the letters are represented only by extracts, with the more mundane passages edited out. In the case of the correspondence with fellow student David Sternbach, this includes occasionally ribald remarks and the prevailing ‘student-ish, raggish mode’; however, a ‘squib’ directed at Peugeot Talbot’s Marketing Director, which may not have been posted, makes it in!

Monica McCabe has adroitly preserved the essentials of the letters’ varying styles, but tantalisation creeps in as one wonders what else that passed between the correspondents has been omitted. Given the subtitle, A Life in Letters, there are one or two jolts in the biographical timeline: for example, we learn of McCabe’s marriage to his first wife, the late Hilary Tann (herself a composer of note, who doesn’t appear as a correspondent until late 2014), only in a long, confessional letter to George Odam in May 1971, primarily about the work-in-progress Second Symphony. John’s letters to Odam were often fulsome and fascinating for their insights into McCabe’s attitudes to his own pieces and his not uncritical views on famous contemporaries such as Boulez, Ferneyhough and Stockhausen.

Monica herself first appears – as Monica Smith – in a letter McCabe wrote to her in December 1968, pre-dating their relationship, though they were colleagues at the review magazine Records and Recording. The series of letters he wrote to her from his 1979 British Council tour of the Middle East reads like a diary, fascinating for the light they shine on the Arab nations he played in: Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria. In Saudi Arabia, he gave the first public recital in the country before a mixed-gender audience, with the organisers expecting to be raided at any moment. The letters from his tours to Australia reveal more comfortable circumstances and organisation, with better-quality pianos, most of the time anyway.

A crucial element of the book is the letters addressed to McCabe, as they indicate not only the individuals he was in contact with but their shared interests and concerns. Few are as revealing as those written to and by the California-based Barney Childs, who shared McCabe’s sharp intellect and sense of humour – albeit expressed in slightly more acid tone – and compositional tastes. The correspondence sheds fascinating light on what McCabe thought and felt about a wide range of topics, from piano-playing to cricket, the avant-garde to TV documentaries and drama (he was a fan of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, for example).

Monica McCabe’s lively, unobtrusive commentaries are a considerable bonus, but her roles within the book also include colleague, wife, correspondent, amanuensis and, finally, herald of John’s passing on – of all days – February 14, 2015. With many delightful illustrations and photographs, this is a treasure trove of information, thoroughly recommended and, at this price, a real bargain.